Law Commission consulting on paid surrogacy in the UK

[PimmsnLemonade]

Sorry, I've no share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/surrogate-mothers-could-be-allowed-to-charge-cash-gfktl290j

giving up a newborn due to poverty

I appreciate that you find the idea of surrogacy unpleasant and/or objectionable but please don't foist upon all women, a narrow set of circumstances in which they would consider surrogacy. I am too old to act as a surrogate but would absolutely have considered it when I was of an appropriate age, regardless of economic circumstances.

As user8905 so succinctly stated, it's optional.

Of course not all women do it due to poverty but the fact is when you introduce money some will. And I was responding to your repeatedly comparing it to any other job. It is not the same as other paid employment that people do.

I am too old to act as a surrogate but would absolutely have considered it when I was of an appropriate age, regardless of economic circumstances

Then you could have partaken in altruistic surrogacy, as can any other woman who has a desire to be a surrogate. No need to introduce commercial surrogacy and the risks of exploitation that go along with it.

Then you could have partaken in altruistic surrogacy, as can any other woman who has a desire to be a surrogate.

I'd have rather liked to be financially compensated for the time and effort involved, as with any other job. I agree that they are not exactly the same but I feel there are sufficient commonalities for the possibility of financial incentivisation while managing the risk of exploitation.

I sense we've reached an impasse based upon our differing perceptions of the exact nature surrogacy. Have a great night.

I do not support the selling of non-newborn children because that is directly commodifying the child, as opposed to the means of its development

eh? Really, what's the difference?

Not glib, I hope - it was meant to evoke the sort of Dickensian attitudes that used to prevail, sorry if that didn't come across?

To be honest I think you gave away unwittingly more than you intended to.

Babies have a human right to be with their mothers.
There is no such thing as a ‘right to a child’
Human being should not be bought and sold.
It doesn’t matter what language you dress it up in, it’s the buying and selling of babies, it’s the exploitation of women, it’s the exploitation of poor and desperate people.

Babies and mothers are inextricably bound to one another through the process of pregnancy, then birth and then through breastfeeding. This bond cannot be replicated by anything else. To legally endorse the separation of a baby from the one person they want more than anyone else in the world is cruel and dehumanising and ultimately damaging for the child.

For some perspective from the babies who are bought and sold via the surrogacy industry, here’s a blog from a young man whose mother is a surrogate.

sonofasurrogate.tripod.com/

Lass do you not think I'm highly attuned to those sorts of terms... I would have been spoken of in hushed tones as a... gasp ... barren wife back in the good old days. What fun that would have been for me.

Would you rather I bow out and leave all FWR discussion to the fertile women?

I should not need to point out to anyone on these threads than I was born a woman; and as such I shouldn't have to prove my uterus works properly (it doesn't, obv) to have a say.

Strawberry I don't think a woman's fertility makes a difference to the surrogacy debate - and if a prerequisite of posting on FWR is fertility, I'll be off too then.

I’m one of those scary Catholic types and it wouldn’t occur to me to even think of a woman as being barren or a child as illegitimate. Nobody talks like that any more.

I think you may be highlighting your own neuroses and of course your own experience may make objectivity difficult.

Look, I cannot as the mum of 5 begin to imagine how awful infertility must be. I can’t. I know how much I wanted children and I would have been devastated not to be able to have them.

But the problem is that if we allow the ends to justify the means, it can give rise to all sorts of atrocities. You may not feel as though you exploited another woman but human nature means that not everyone is as well-intentioned or concerned for their surrogate’s welfare. Desperation can sometimes blind our senses.

But I wish you and your child well. There’s no point bashing you over the head for what is done.

caro my own experience of having a child through surrogacy does make objectivity difficult. As does everyone's I guess.

I've been active under various names about the proposed changes to the GRA over the last year and it's fucking weird to find myself out of sync with the MN hive mind, tbh.

I understand some on this thread are very anti-surrogacy. I'd just ask you to remember that my daughter is a real person who might read this some day.

She has nothing to be ashamed of, she was very much wanted; she was created because of the kindness of her surrogate mum who is a real person, who loves her and loves us. Yes, the plural of anecdotes does not equal data.... but relentlessly focussing on the the rare fuckups in surrogacy is always going to miss the point for most of us grateful parents.

StrawberryFilter No one has said anything remotely critical of your daughter. No one has said anything which could remotely be interpreted as saying she should feel ashamed about anything. There are posters , including me, who have been critical of what you did but your daughter is not responsible for your actions.

I found your choice of language shocking and your explanation does not alter that opinion. I am genuinely shocked that anyone on MN, particularly on FWR could casually juxtapose the words "illegitimate" and "babies" and not see how offensive it is.

@MrsSpenserGregson yes I have wondered the same for years and it seems the law is going in the opposite direction.

I hope you've been able to access support more recently.

LassWiADelicateAir , stigmatising surrogacy is potentially harmful to children born through that method because it casts the means of their development as 'wrong'.

Regarding your shock at StrawberryFilter's choice of words, though I cannot speak for her directly, they were a potent reminder of how far we have come. I was fortunate enough to have been able to talk to someone in the 80s who was old enough to remember women gaining the right to vote, she pointed out that there was a time when the mere notion of women being treated as equals was grossly offensive to the majority of the population.

strawberryfilter I expect you have a passing understanding of class analysis and radical feminist analysis of female oppression, even if you don't entirely agree. So I am sure that you understand the concerns that feminists have about the commodification of female bodies on principle and the commercialisation of pregnancy and babies?

Yes, you did what you had to to get your baby. I sympathise with that, and most people do. But the system of surrogacy that you benefited from is deeply flawed and contributes to the oppression of women. Regardless of how your particular surrogate feels about things, that's fact.

I have no negative feelings about your dd @StrawberryFilter but I do about your actions.

Wanting a child, however desperately, doesn't confer the right to have one. As someone said upthread - the ends do not justify the means. You used the body of another woman because of your own desires. You can keep telling yourself that you didn't exploit her but the fact that there are so few altruistic surrogates available in the uk should tell you that actually, there are a vanishingly tiny minority of women who "just loooove pregnancy so much" that they are willing to risk their own physical and mental health, as well as that of their offspring, in order to be a surrogate mother.

The reason you went to the US is that they have allowed the exploitation of women through surrogacy there. That is why it is easier to find a surrogate there, and why it is easier still if you look in India. Stop kidding yourself that you're some sort of worthy exception to the concerns which people have raised about people who are prepared to use other women's bodies in this way.

On a separate but related note, someone was talking about how you might apply the principles of the children act to couples who bring a child acquired through a foreign surrogacy arrangement back to the uk. It is my suggestion that being prepared to buy a child probably should preclude those individuals from becoming the legal parents of that child. They have shown that they are prepared to participate in the purchase of another human being for their own purposes and it is difficult to see how it would be in the best interests of that child to remain with parents who view them as a commodity.

@StrawberryFilter "relentlessly focussing on the the rare fuckups in surrogacy is always going to miss the point for most of us grateful parents."

Yeah but this discussion is not about you about you (people who've become parents via surrogacy). It's about the surrogates (and the children they give birth to). They are the people who are at risk due to surrogacy. You're not. You've got your child. You've got what you wanted. But you've done it in a way which could cause untold problems for future women (and children), and saying "oh but the surrogate we used is absolutely fine with it all" really really misses the point.

It is my suggestion that being prepared to buy a child probably should preclude those individuals from becoming the legal parents of that child

That would not be applying the principles of the children act. Assuming at least one of the purchasing couple is the bio parent of the child, and the child has been resident with the purchasing couple, the welfare principles of the children act would preclude making any changes to the child's circumstances without meeting the threshold of significant harm, which being conceived by surrogacy would not meet the legal test for.

StrawberryFilter What's done is done. I am pleased for you, your surrogate, and your daughter, if there was no coercion involved, and wish your family the best in life.

I criticise the idea that anyone has the right to a child. I find framing the debate in terms of infertile couple's rights and gay men's rights to be horrifying. I stand by this sentiment. The focus should be on protecting vulnerable women from exploitation, and the best interests of the child.

I can sympathise with the struggles of infertility and at once stand by my criticism of a system that I worry to be dangerously open to abuse of poorer women. Having one's own biological child is a desire. A very strong desire, it's true. But a desire, and not a right.

I do not criticise your daughter, because how she came into this world is nothing to with her as a person, and perfectly well believe you capable of being a loving mother to her, regardless of my issues with the possible abuse of a commercial surrogacy system.

When I argue against commercial surrogacy I don't look at your daughter and think she is implicated in this somehow or want to contribute to some stigma about her. I don't look at you and want to make your life more difficult for the hell of it. I want to protect her as a woman, and you as a woman, from the possibility of being exploited for your wombs, in cases where you may be in financial difficulties, or under emotional coercion. I think that nobody should have the right to buy access to your wombs.

Yeah, I don't see how that's going to happen. The court will be making the decision about what is best for that individual child. That is what the Act says. The same principles that will prevent us from having the same system as the US will also prevent us from removing surrogacy born children from their parents in the UK. A different decision might perhaps have been made if the court were deciding based on the child's situation before removal from the surrogate, and sometimes is in the UK. But that's not what happens in cases where a baby has been born through surrogacy overseas.

I agree 100% with what maniacmagpie said - brilliantly written.

I criticise the idea that anyone has the right to a child. I find framing the debate in terms of infertile couple's rights and gay men's rights to be horrifying. I stand by this sentiment. The focus should be on protecting vulnerable women from exploitation, and the best interests of the child.

Maniacmagpie that's really well put. I hope very much the review will take that line as well as it's in everyone's best interests.

I guess I've said my bit and will leave it at that.

(Other than to say - again - that when I referred to "the hordes of orphans and illegitimate babies" that used to be adopted it was in reference to the sort of horrific, outdated, thank-god-we-don't-live-in-those-bad-old-days. In the past. When things like orphanages and workhouses existed and language like that was used. How anyone could think that implied approval is just but hey, my wit and irony don't always translate well on a chat forum).

How anyone could think that implied approval is just

Finding a reason to be outraged with the presentation of an argument you want to disagree with can be an effective way to silence the individual without making any effective counterpoint.

Regarding your shock at StrawberryFilter's choice of words, though I cannot speak for her directly, they were a potent reminder of how far we have come

Not far enough apparently for Strawberry to realise what a horrible expression she used. I'm almost 60. I've seen this term fall out of use and actually being expunged as a legal concept.

Sorry but I think she let slip more than she intended. One supply source of babies has dried up to be replaced by surrogacy.